With
the high school season coming to a close on the national scene and
the summer circuit officially underway with the Perfect Game National
Showcase conducted this past weekend, it’s time to name the 2014
High School National Champion. The honor this year goes to the Barbe
(La.) Buccaneers, a team that is no stranger to success this year,
nor is their coach, Glenn Cecchini.
After
opening up the season as the 20th ranked team in the
country, the Buccaneers showed they wouldn’t stop climbing the
rankings until they became the top ranked team, moving up in each of
the next five rankings. Over those five weeks, Barbe went from 20 to
14, 14 to 7, 7 to 6, 6 to 3, and 3 to 2. They repeated a week as the
second ranked team, but once Archbishop McCarthy lost, Barbe claimed
the top spot in the April 14 update and never looked back.
For
the next ten weeks, and what was ultimately the rest of the season,
Barbe remained at the top spot and rode a 28-game winning streak to
close out the year. The 28th win was a 7-1 victory over
Live Oak, which helped Barbe to capture the Louisiana 5A State
Championship, their second in three years.
One
of their biggest in-state matchups came against St. Thomas More (ranked No. 13), a
team with two players selected in the 2014 MLB First Year Player
Draft, and Barbe prevailed in an 8-2 victory.
The
Jordan twins, Beau and Bryce, both of whom are committed to Louisiana
State for the upcoming fall, led the Buccaneer offense this spring.
Bryce led the team with a .481 batting average and seemed to be a
magnet for the ball, getting hit an astonishing 35 times. Bryce on
the other hand, seemed to have a magnet for the ball in the barrel of
his bat as he clubbed a whopping 15 home runs this spring.
Kennon
Fontenot, an Oklahoma State commit, and Gunner Leger, a
Louisiana-Lafayette recruit, both put up solid numbers with Fontenot
driving in 52 runs and Leger batting .438 while going 11-0 on the
mound with a 1.94 ERA.
On
a team with six Division I commits in the senior class and a TCU
commit in junior Braden Comeaux, freshman lefthander Aaron Goree
provided a big spark on the mound, logging 68 innings while going
12-0 with a 1.54 ERA.
With
the rankings expanding to 100 teams to close out the year, we welcome
51 new entrants with very little change to the top 50, as the
majority of high school baseball has been completed this spring.